Special Programs

We offer a wide range of programs, from our basic facilitation of optimal learning at our two centers, to special programs within the day, week, month, and year at both centers.

35 Learning Areas in Each Classroom and Support Committees
Afternoon Programs
Annual Book Sale
Annual Picnic
Artists in Residence
Bridge to Reggio, Italy Program
C5 Community-Wide Potlucks
Child Consultants
Costume Days, Costume Week, and the Costume Potluck
Creative Movement and Dance
Dramatic Facilitation for Social Problem-Solving
Family Scholarships
Festival of Learning
Gardening
Greening of Learning – Reducing, Reusing, Recycling and the ReCreate Room
Head Parents in Each Classroom
Mentoring College Students and Supervised Field Experiences
Music and the Music together Program
Parent Meetings to Support the Classrooms and Projects
Parents Night Out
Pre-Kindergarten Program
Preschool for All Program
Program for Infant-Toddler Care Training (PITC)
Project Books
Resources for Infant Educarers Training (RIE)
Summer Book & Box Projects
Visiting Artists
Winter Cultural Highlights

(The details below and others will soon be linked on their own pages to the above captions.)

These are additions to the main program and curriculum. Examples are:

Music Together — C5 provides the Music Together program once a week in the classrooms for every learning group. C5 teachers have been trained by Music Together from Princeton, New Jersey. The program is included as part of regular tuition. Parents and family members are invited to join the weekly sessions. Simply, check with your child’s teaching team for days and times.

Summer Book and Box — This is an all-summer activity where families collect things in a book and/or a box that that happen over the summer, and they decorate them and bring them into the school at the beginning of a new school year to share with their child’s learning group. Each family signs up for a 15 minute presentation. They are usually conducted in September.

Winter Cultural Highlights — This activity is very similar to the Summer Book & Box activity. The presentations by each family are about their current family culture and/or heritage. It is usually held in Late January and early February.

Artists in Residence — Each month on two afternoons, about two weeks apart, a different “artist” engages children and staff members at both centers. These artists are friends of C5, parents, extended family members, and staff members. They have been musicians, dancers, crafts people, story tellers, etc. 

Visiting Artists: Music — The San Francisco Conservatory of Music sends two of their advanced students to C5 each month to perform for children at both centers.

Visiting Artists: Dance — The San Francisco Ballet School is also sending accomplished dancers to C5 for special performances and participation experiences at both centers. They come several times during the school year.

Afternoon Program — At the discretion of each teaching team in each classroom, there can be an Afternoon Program that includes themes, processes, and materials that appeal to the children and allow for their emergent interests to shape the experiences within the program. The general guiding themes can change, although they tend to be scheduled on the same day of the week each week to offer consistency for the children.

Festival of Learning — Each year in the spring, C5 plans and hosts a three week celebration of children and their work. There are demonstrations of children and their teachers working in public venues. There is an exhibit of children’s work from every age group, from infants to Prekindergarten. There is a seminar for parents, early childhood education professionals, and the public to discuss the work of young children and their unexpected potential. There is a gala evening of fun, food, films, games, a raffle, music, and dancing. It is held during the city-wide Week of the Young Child

Costume Days, Week, and Costume Potluck — Each year in June or July, the children and their families prepare for two weeks and make costumes and props that match each child’s interest or fascination. The teachers help when the child is in school. During Costume Week, the children finish the costumes, wear them, use them in dramatic play and scripted stories, plays, and films that they write and produce. On Friday of that week, there is a C5 community-wide evening Costume Potluck, where everyone, including teachers, parents, siblings, grand parents, and others wear costumes and eat, sing, play instruments, dance, and socialize.

Project Books — Occasionally teachers and parents collaborate to create a booklet that captures and represents an in-depth inquiry and/or project on which the children are working or have completed. C5 has a collection of these booklets. We can print copies for the group in the project and encourage parents to take the booklet home to keep and read with their child to extend and reinforce the learning.

ReCreate Room — Two of our teachers who went to Reggio Emilia on the 2007 study tour came back to establish a more formal recycle area for the Preschool Center. One of them took the lead and redesigned the front half of the back store room and designating it the ReCreate room. Children can go to the room with their teachers to select materials for projects they want to create. Parents, family members, and friends of C5 donate reusable materials of all sorts for the room. The room is like a store where children can shop for free, while supporting the environment.

Bridge to Reggio — Each year, C5 sends two staff members to Reggio Emilia, Italy as part of the U.S. delegation study tour. They attend a one week conference and tour the world famous preprimary schools of Reggio Emilia to enhance their skills and understanding of one of the fundamental curriculum and program influences of C5 Children’s School. The tours are usually in the spring.

Annual Picnic — Once each year in the fall, usually in early September, C5 has a picnic, with potluck food, Music Together songs, instruments for children, and a wide range of things for currently enrolled children and alumni families to do.

Parents Night Out — Parents have the opportunity on select evenings during the year to leave their child at the Center with C5 teachers and staff while they take an evening on the town. Some parents go on a date together, some do special shopping, others visit museums or parks, some join other couples, and others find creative things to do. The children are served a meal and have special activities. Getting to wear pajamas at school is a much anticipated part of the evening. These are scheduled when demand peaks; usually about twice a year.